The program is concerned with development of reactions and procedures in the carbohydrate field useful for synthesis of structures present in biologically important carbohydrate derivatives, and in understanding their biological role. A general objective is the establishment of reactions of high specificity that can be used, under mild conditions, for the structural conversion of common sugars and their derivatives into analogs of unusual functionality or stereochemistry that are present in numerous classes of natural carbohydrate derivatives, and also other chiral molecules, having importance in essential biological function and metabolism, or in therapeutic control. The reactions and procedures will facilitate partial and total syntheses of such unusual sugars as are present in various antibiotics, components of bacterial cell walls, antitumor agents, physiologically active glycosides, and sugar derivatives involved in metabolism; analogs of other biologically active molecules involved in neurotransmission and other functions will be obtained optically pure by carbohydrate-based syntheses.